Some things are updated, but for the most part, I already have this as a page. However, since I’m working on OP-ness Returns, I figured I should leave this out there for reference. For the first chapter I literally needed to consult this constantly. But it’s not necessary for the majority of you to read this. If you’re interested in the rules though, here it is…

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Yeah, I didn’t die, though I felt like I might the past few days. It was probably just a combination of sleep deprivation, insomnia, hypochondria and maybe some minor illness? I don’t really know what was/is wrong with me exactly, which is why I’m gonna try to go to the doctor later today.

About three years ago, around this same time of year, I had a similar mental breakdown type situation. I basically was a little constipated, so I took laxatives, which most definitely did not fix my problems at all. Instead, it made me feel like I either had a blockage of some sort, or maybe I had internal injuries? It was probably just some pulled muscles and inflammation due to the fucking laxative overdose.

Anyway, once I stayed awake for a week and finally slept normally, I pretty much felt better immediately. This time, I figured it was something similar.

It started about a week or two ago. I was having trouble pissing. Like I would piss, and then feel like I still had to go, or I might piss myself. However, I figured it was probably just a case of urethritis, ate some cranberry sauce, drank some cranberry juice and then I was fine.

A week or so went by and I almost forgot about it, when the irritated pisser came back. This time, I had back pain too, which of course, I linked to the fucking urethritis and googled the symptoms, ending up feeling like there might be something wrong with my kidneys? I took a hot shower and the back problem went away. Also drank some cranberry juice for the next day or two, and the problem went away.

The next day, I stayed awake for about 21-23 hours. Binge reading all day. I felt fine the whole day, and the previous few days…

And then shit hit the fan, metaphorically. My piss problem went away, but I ended up with something much much worse. It felt like there was a throbbing in the back-left side of my head, not pain, just a constantly and incessant pulsation. I didn’t understand what was wrong or how to fix it, aside maybe sleeping, but I couldn’t sleep. I just woke up after all.

Every time I walked up and down the stairs, I could hear my heart beating in my ears and the whole day, I could feel my pulse by lightly touching my neck or my chest. My assumption was a high blood pressure.

Anxiety definitely doesn’t help, and was probably my main problem and the reason it was so hard for me to ‘get over it’. I kept telling myself, over and over: “You’re alright. There’s nothing wrong with you. It’s just anxiety, and it’ll pass. You’re healing, you’re fine. There’s nothing wrong. I’m healthy, I’m fine. It’s not a big deal. Don’t worry about it.”

I didn’t have a full-blown panic attack, but it was a slow, unbearably long experience. Where I just couldn’t even ‘think’. I read some stuff, watched some stuff, tried to write a bit… But it was like I was in a quagmire, or an endless fog.

When the day finally came to an end, things got worse. I tried to sleep, but I couldn’t lay on my side. My neck felt like it was being pressed on. A common symptom of anxiety, obviously, but what was I supposed to do about it?

“You’re gonna be fine. There’s nothing wrong. Just go to sleep and everything will be better… Why the fuck can’t I breathe?!”

And thus, I ended up going upstairs, out of the basement and up to the top floor. I made my brother’s old box-spring bed, hoping that maybe it would be more comfortable and could sleep for more than an hour without waking up with my heart racing and my brain pounding…

I was wrong about it being comfortable. It hurt my ribs to lay there. I woke up in an hour, not panicking, but feeling like my body was on fire. My throat was dry, my head was hurting, but I drank something and went back to sleep. Every hour, I repeated the same thing, until I finally slept for 6 hours.

It was around 3 am, Tuesday, February 26th. I made a massive mistake. I felt fine. Much better than before. My head didn’t pound as much. I got a little sleep. I thought I was fine. I really thought the nightmare was over.

It wasn’t.

I had a cough, so I drank a hot tea. Thinking it was just a hot tea, what’s the worst that could happen? It calmed me down a bit, I stopped coughing, my throat felt better. I wasn’t be strangled like before.

So I had a second tea. That’s when shit started getting weird. My heartrate and blood pressure were rising. Probably? At least it seemed that way. I freaked out, obviously. That didn’t help at all.

At a certain point, I think it was around 11 am? I told my father, “I can’t calm down. I’m sorry, I just can’t think, it feels like my brain is going to explode… I keep fidgeting, like my heart might burst at any moment, I need to fucking calm down, but I cant!” Or something like that.

He said, “Alright, I’ll go to the grocery store and pick you up some chamomile tea. That’ll calm you down… Do you wanna come with me?”

Keep in mind, I hadn’t left the house in years. Just because I didn’t want or need to leave the house. I was fine here. I write, I read, I play games and stuff. That’s how I’ve lived for the past 5 years or so. Leaving the house is counter-productive. It increases my chances of getting sick, injured, wastes my time overall and I was busy.

“Yes… Yeah, I’ll go with you.” But I felt like a different person that day. I wasn’t afraid of going outside or anything. It was in the 50’s so not too cold. I wore some jeans, put on some shoes, wore a flannel shirt and a fucking leather jacket over-top of that.

I went outside and the sun was shining, it was the city, but it was still nice. I almost instantly relaxed. Like a weight had been lifted off my soul. The air was cold, but not too cold to breathe. It was great.

The grocery store is almost a mile away from my house. Half the way was uphill and the other half, downhill. It honestly wasn’t nearly as hard as I expected. My parents always tell me I need to get out and walk around because I’m so out of shape, but the truth is that I ‘run’ up and down at least 50 flights of stairs a day. I’m a lot healthier than I expected to be honest.

Of course, after going to the grocery store with my father and buying a bunch of stuff, we ended up having to carry all that shit back. He has this backpack that he put jugs of milk and cartons of this fruit juice inside, which was a decent amount of weight on its own. But I carried most of the stuff.

It was two canvas bags that he brought with him. Each one held about 15-20 lbs of groceries. Including my little box of chamomile tea. Thus, we had to walk almost a mile back to the house. It wasn’t that bad at first, but about half-way there it felt like my shoulders were being stabbed by the weight of those bags.

By the time we got home, I completely forgot about all the bullshit. I drank my tea, felt my body and mind relax. And I even had an hour long conversation with a Facebook friend that I literally never really talked to before then. Like a video-chat.

Anyway, I felt better. I relaxed and finally, at around 6 pm, I went to sleep. I only slept for 6-7 hours, but it was a ‘real’ sleep. I didn’t wake up panicking or anything. I just slept.

When I woke up I was pretty calm already. The pounding in my head was gone for good. When I touched my neck with my fingers, I had to press in pretty far before I could feel a pulse. And my heartrate was normalish. At least I felt that way.

But… I felt like nothing mattered. I watched shows, read stuff, wrote stuff and it literally felt like I couldn’t understand what I was supposed to be doing. As if I was a different soul, controlling the same body. I didn’t enjoy writing, reading, anything really. I felt so fucking lonely.

The feeling didn’t stop, but only got stronger as time passed. I wanted to be with someone more than anything else. And I had no fucking idea how to make that happen. Hell, I still don’t. It was a weird emptiness that I wasn’t used to at all.

Of course, my throat felt like someone was squeezing it too. And I kept having trouble breathing. No matter how much I breathed, or even if I slowed down and calmed down, it wasn’t getting better. I was on the verge of a panic attack when my father suggested that we go for a walk.

And so we did. It wasn’t nearly as far, but my feet, legs and left knee hurt really bad before we even started.

That loneliness and longing didn’t stop though. Even though I wasn’t freaking out as much about the breathing thing, I still felt extremely ‘depressed’ and desperate for some kinda human connection. But ultimately, I woke up today and after a few hours of similarly depressing thoughts, a switch was flipped in my mind.

I feel like ‘me’ again’. For fuck’s sake, look at this big long 1700 word explanation of what’s been wrong with me lately!

That’s like a whole goddamn chapter of a story, or more! And yet I wasted my hands and time writing this shit? What’s wrong with me?

Anyway, I’ll be going to see a doctor later today regardless of whether anything’s actually medically wrong. It’s been years since I went to the doctor, and there might be a minor infection or something that can be ‘cured’. At the very least, if I know it’s anxiety, then I can calm down and deal with that.

To be honest, I don’t feel anxious right now at all. I feel pretty good, except my right-thumb knuckle is really sore from writing this shit in under 15 minutes lmao.

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“Heh, hahaa~!” I couldn’t help laughing as I heard Ana’s stomach rumbling. Even though I was technically ‘alone’, it still felt a lot less lonely with the two of me. She also giggled. It was weird, but that’s why it was so funny. Continue reading →

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The moment of truth. Ana was standing in the bathtub, her shirt still tucked into her boxers. I walked inside the bathroom and used my left heel to slightly close the door, but not all the way. Then I walked forward, over the three layers of towels that were on the floor. The crumpled up transparent shower-curtain almost touched my left elbow, but I deftly avoided it. Continue reading →

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“Wow… I can’t believe I just wrote two whole chapters in ten minutes.”

Normally, when I’m taking a shower or lying in bed, my brain goes full-throttle on the creative juices. But obviously I can’t do shit about it, except try to remember as much as possible and then write it all down later. However, since ‘Michael’ was in the shower and ‘Ana’ was sitting at my computer, things worked pretty efficiently. Continue reading →

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I was going to say Anael or Iris, which were both names of the first female character I had ever written but… Well, Ana is simpler. If I was going to write it out, it would be Anael Iris Healy. Technically, she was usually an Irish ginger in my stories. Still, if I had hesitated, my mother probably would have become even more suspicious. Continue reading →